AVCP sends top leadership to circumpolar Inuit assembly in Iqaluit

Representatives from the Association of Village Council Presidents are attending the 15th Inuit Circumpolar Council General Assembly in Iqaluit, Nunavut, the first gathering of this scale in nearly a decade, joining Inuit leaders from across the Arctic to address issues of shared concern to Inuit communities.

Representing AVCP at the General Assembly are Board Chairman Thad Tikiun, Board Vice-Chair Martin Andrew, Board Secretary Julia Dorris, and CEO Vivian Korthuis. The four joined the remaining members of the 18-member ICC Alaska delegation, which represents the Bering Strait, Northwest Arctic, North Slope, and Yukon-Kuskokwim regions.

AVCP is a tribal consortium of 56 federally recognized tribes across roughly 55,000 square miles of Western Alaska, serving a population of 27,000 in 48 communities along the Yukon River, Kuskokwim River, and Bering Sea coast. Residents of the region are primarily Yup'ik, Cup'ik, and Athabascan. Delegates at the assembly are discussing food security, hunting practices, Indigenous languages, and Inuit identity. ICC, founded in 1977, holds a permanent seat in the Arctic Council.

Bering Sea pollock trawl fisheries have taken more than 246,000 Chinook salmon and 3.5 million chum salmon as bycatch since 2011, according to the Kuskokwim River Inter-tribal Fish Commission. Those figures reflect the broader resource pressures facing subsistence communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.